Today was the first time Ron and I had to split up for the kids' games. Ron took Tyler to his football game, and I took Danielle to her soccer game. Ron said Tyler did very well today. Tyler really seems to be enjoying it. Danielle did very well, too, but I think her 2nd bowl of cereal slowed her down a bit. :) Next week we'll switch and I'll take Tyler, Ron will take Danielle. It's disappointing not getting to watch both kids play, but at least both kids get to play.
I need to vent a little about something that's irritating me tonight. Probably everyone else will roll their eyes and file it away with my "it's not a hamburger pattie, it's a hamburger patty" argument, but it's my blog and I'm going to write about it anyway.
Tyler and Danielle both complete Weekly Readers in their classrooms. This week Tyler's was about monarch butterflies. What a great topic for him after our caterpillar/butterfly experience. Well, it could have been a great topic. There wasn't any new information introduced in the paper, which is understandable. I realize not everyone in first grade would know as much as Tyler does about butterflies simply because of our experience this summer. What really irritated me, though, was this diagram of a butterfly's body:
Sucking tube??!! Feelers? Sucking tube REALLY annoys me. Even Danielle knows that part has a name, although she can't quite get it right. 6 and 7 year olds are not too young to learn that a "sucking tube" is a proboscis and "feelers" are antenna. Who cares if most of them will never use that information again? They should be given the opportunity to learn it. Ron and I have often talked about our fear of our kids being "dumbed down" once they got into school because information is taught to the average. This is just one example. Why wouldn't they (Weekly Reader, in this case) take every opportunity to provide accurate, complete knowledge just in case there was a student, somewhere, ready to soak it up? There is no reason our children should loose the edge they have just because they're in school rather than at home.
I'm still irritated. I wonder if Weekly Reader has a comment section on their website...
(Go ahead, roll your eyes.)
3 comments:
At the risk of never having an article accepted for publication there, my guess would be that whoever the editor was never learned the correct terms. While your children may be exceptional it is due in large part to exceptional parenting and not everyone has been that fortunate.
Thank you. I don't know about "exceptional parenting" though - so often it just feels like surviving. :)
I am on your side Lori, I think about the same things...
Post a Comment